With the release of my Cosmopolitan Red Hot Read from Harlequin, The V-Spot, on October 8th, and the upcoming release of my Loveswept contemporary romance, Loving You Is Easy, scheduled for December 9th, I’m noticing a lot more visits to my website than usual. This is fantastic!!! I’m thrilled you’ve taken the time to stop by!!!

I’d love to know who you are and where you’re from and how you found out about my books.

I’m thrilled to share SECRETS OF A SHY SOCIALITE won the 2013 National Readers Choice Award for Contemporary Series Romance. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to attend the ceremony, but here’s a picture of the award! This book wouldn’t have been possible without input from Mary Ritter and Stella Turk, and the help of my wonderful editor, Flo Nicoll!!! To find out more about SECRETS OF A SHY SOCIALITE please visit my Medical Romance Books Page.

I’m thrilled to share that two of my books, CRAVING HER SOLDIER’S TOUCH and SECRETS OF A SHY SOCIALTE are finalists in the 2013 OKRWA National Readers Choice Awards in the Contemporary Series category.

I love that so many of my friends and favorite authors also made the list.

I wrote this holiday short story that I just love, The Group Seduction, that released toward the end of November, 2013. (You can find out more about it on my Home Page.) I don’t know whether it was the timing of the release – about a week before Thanksgiving/Chanukah, or that it was a short story at the $0.99 price point, or if it got swallowed up in the flood of e-books available for purchase, but the story didn’t sell near as well as I’d hoped.

Since The Group Seduction was published via a small press publisher, my royalty on each book sold will probably come out to be around $0.12. No, I never expected this story to be a big moneymaker. But I had hoped women, and maybe some men, would read it and relate to it and maybe, just maybe, get the courage to do what Bella did – take a risk to save her marriage.

What I love about small press publishing is their ability to get a book out within weeks, which is what happened with The Group Seduction. The downside of this is very little time for advance promomotion and setting up some blog visits. Most of the big book blogs schedule posts months in advance. So I tried to think of other, inexpensive ways I could promo the story.

I tweeted and posted on Facebook. But I got frustrated because, according to my FB stats, out of the 568 people who have liked my FB Author Page, (and feel free to do that now if you have a minute!) only between 68 and 229 people were actually seeing my promo posts. (And the 229 was when I’d managed to get some conversation comments going.)

So I decided to pay to boost a post on FB about an excellent review The Group Seductionreceived.

And here’s what happened:

I opted to spend $15.00 and to reach people who had liked my FB page and their friends. (I could have done a targeted promotion for fans of romance of a certain age and other pre-determined, specific criteria but chose not to.) Of note, the process was very quick and easy.

According to my FB stats this is what my $15.00 bought me:

Paid reach: 2,337

Engagement: 85 (Of note, most of the comments were from people who regulary interacted with my FB page.)

15 photo clicks

16 link clicks

2 page likes

The review in the post I boosted had a buy link for Amazon. According to Novel Rank (which is an estimate of Amazon sales), I sold 1 copy of The Group Seduction in the 24-hour period the post was ‘boosted’ on Facebook.

Was the price worth it? In my opinion, yes. If nothing else, it was a learning experience. And there are a lot of variables I couldn’t measure. Maybe people purchased The Group Seductionon sites other than Amazon. It was a busy time of year, maybe people didn’t see the post during the 24 hours of the promotion but a day or two later. Maybe people were too busy to think about reading during the holiday shopping frenzy but they made a note of my story and plan to read it once things settle down. (If you fall into this category, now would be a good time!)

Would I pay to boost a Facebook post again? I think so. But I’ll probably do a targeted promotion and spend more time on the post I plan to boost.

So what about you? What are your thoughts on paying for Facebook promotion of your posts? Have you tried it? Were you happy with the results?

I’m starting my holiday celebration early this year with the release of my first Christmas short story,The Group Seduction.(Available now!)

Official blurb: Bella Cristy is gambling that a daring plan will save her marriage–and the marriages of three other friends–in time for the holidays.

My blurb: To reignite the spark in her marriage, a 39-year-old, plumper-than-she’d-like-to-be, mother of three enlists the assistance of three similarly sexless, many-years-married Bunco buddies to stage a seduction of their husbands – in time for the holidays. A group seduction…not to be confused with group sex!

What Goodreads members are saying about The Group Seduction:

“This sexy little short is sweet, funny and incredibly real!” Tracey

“This is a lovely little short story about a woman prepared to do what it takes to reinvigorate a marriage gone stale from neglect.” Fiona

“How great is it, when you read a story and it’s so close to your own life that you find yourself saying, “That very thing has happened to me!” Jan

I’m thrilled to share, on Friday, October 18th, Secrets of a Shy Socialitewon the NJ RWA Golden Leaf Award for best in Contemporary Series!!! I’ve finaled in a lot of contests over the years, both as a writer and as a published author. But this is my very first win! And though it took a lot of driving (4+ hours round trip in Friday New Jersey traffic) it was wonderful to be able to accept the award in person. But lesson learned – next time I’ll jot down an acceptance speech, just in case.

I remember attending the NJ RWA conference last year and thinking how great it’d be to see one of my books displayed at the award ceremony. And one year later, here it is!!! (Bottom right)

And here’s the beautiful award!

And here’s me with the other winners!

I don’t write to win awards. I write so readers can escape into, and hopefully enjoy, my stories. But winning the Golden Leaf Award was a wonderful experience. Thank you New Jersey RWA!

I recently stumbled upon something and, since I was considering self-publishing the story in the near furture, I wasn’t sure if I should make it public or keep it quiet. But as a thank you to all my readers who have supported me on my journey, I decided to share.

My short story, The Nurse In Charge, published in THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF ER ROMANCE, can be read for FREE, in its entirety, as part of Amazon’s Look Inside option.

This LINK should take you to THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF ER ROMANCE on Amazon. Then click on Look Inside.

If you have some time, I’d love for you to check it out and leave a comment to let me know what you think.

Last night I received a phone call telling me that SECRETS OF A SHY SOCIALITE is a finalist in the NJRWA Golden Leaf Contest. If you’ve ever been to the NJRWA annual conference in October, you know they make a big deal of their contest finalists. In fact, I remember attending the award ceremony last year, seeing all the promo finalists get and thinking ‘I’d like to be up there one day!”

And this year I will be!!!

Only problem is, I have a big family wedding the weeked of the NJRWA conference and wasn’t planning to attend this year. ARGH!!! It totally figures, doesn’t it? But I’m trying to work things out so I can at least make the award ceremony. It will involve A LOT of driving. But hopefully it will be worth it!!!

Do you have any good news to share? Let’s celebrate!!!!

Oh, and if you haven’t read SECRETS OF A SHY SOCIALITE yet, you can find more information and buy links on my Books page.